Re: Warnings exceed limit

[Alan Mead]

On 11/16/2019 1:14 PM, Ben Pfaff wrote:
>>           too_many_errors = true;
>>           if (m->severity == MSG_S_WARNING)
>>             submit_note (xasprintf (_("Warnings (%d) exceed limit (%d).  
>> Syntax processing will be halted."),
>>                                     n_msgs, max_msgs));
>>           else
>>             submit_note (xasprintf (_("Errors (%d) exceed limit (%d).  
>> Syntax processing will be halted."),
>>                                     n_msgs, max_msgs));
>>         }
>>     }
>> }
>>
>>
>> I don't understand this code:
>>
>>   if (m->severity == MSG_S_WARNING)
>>     n_msgs += counts[MSG_S_ERROR];
>>
>>
>> Why would a warning increase n_msgs by some count of errors?
> I'm sure it's because I read in some earlier version of the SPSS
> documentation that errors contribute toward the warning count for this
> purpose. It looks like this is no longer the case though.

Upon reflection, a few other things occur to me. Those log messages may
be misleading. I could get n-1 warnings and then 1 error and have
processing stop with the message about errors, or vice-versa. Not a big
deal, because this probably arises rarely.

Also, how are message translations handled in PSPP? I see emails about
"New Hungarian PO file for 'pspp' (version 1.2.0)" and I had the
impression that all the user strings were extracted to a file (which is
then translated) and, I assumed, referenced indirectly. Is it a problem
that the source shows a specific (English-language) string?

And finally, if PSPP handled errors and warnings independently (and SPSS
in batch mode did not), would that break anything? Do you think anyone
is using PSPP in a way where halting is a feature? Like in a batch mode
where if the syntax processed, then they do not check for
warnings/errors? I think halting on potentially innocuous data problems
is a far greater issue? I routinely read in test data and I might have
hundreds of variables and hundreds of people. If the system that exports
the data uses an odd symbol for missing (I have a client who outputs
tab-delimited files with comma used as a missing data value) I might
easily get hundreds of warnings about character data found where a
numeric value was expected.

I agree with Frans: Turning off warnings is a lot less useful than
having PSPP show some warnings, suppress the rest but continue processing.

-Alan

-- 

Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.
President, Talent Algorithms Inc.

science + technology = better workers

http://www.alanmead.org

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an
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manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently, and die gallantly. Specialization is for 
insects."

-- Robert A. Heinlein